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TED WYMAN, QMI Agency

Oct 9, 2012

, Last Updated: 11:44 PM ET

"If there's a goal that everyone remembers, it was back in old '72."

— The Tragically Hip

I was six years old in 1972 and just old enough to remember that iconic hockey series between Canada and Russia, that stirring comeback by the boys wearing the Maple Leaf and, of course, the most memorable goal of a generation by Paul Henderson.

Unlike most Canadians, however, my fondest hockey memories of 1972 don't come from the Summit Series. I know, I'm a little different.

Well sue me, because it's true. My greatest memories of that incredible year for hockey come from the first games I ever attended and from the time when my city got its first pro hockey team.

It was in 1972 that the Winnipeg Jets were born, given credibility by the miraculous signing of one of hockey's greatest icons — none other than Bobby Hull — and came to life as one of the best teams in the fledgling World Hockey Association.

It was in that year that a dreamer named Ben Hatskin put it all together and began a ride that Winnipeggers are enjoying again today, albeit with some major peaks and valleys along the way.

Yeah, I was young, but I knew enough to be impressed that Bobby Hull was wearing a Winnipeg Jets jersey. It was the start of a love affair with a team that would go on to become one of the best in the world and would win three Avco Cup championships for our city.

Of course, my memories are few and far between, given my tender age, so let's hear it from somebody who had a front-row seat for all seven tumultuous WHA seasons.

"It was a great time to be involved in hockey," former Jets goalie Joe Daley began as we met in his sports card shop on St. James St., recently.

Daley had played for expansion NHL teams in Buffalo and Pittsburgh and had a stint in Detroit before he got an opportunity to come home and play for a new team, in a new league. He jumped at the chance, even before he knew the team was going to sign Hull.

In some ways the whole thing seems like a blur, with the team starting up, Hull signing at Portage and Main, injunctions being filed by the NHL to keep Hull and other players out of the WHA, clandestine practices behind papered windows in Kenora and a little thing called the Summit Series going on in the back yard.

"For me, being a Winnipegger and coming home to play, and having a Summit Series game in Winnipeg and being able to go and watch that, it was unbelievable," Daley reflected. "Everything was happening so fast that you really didn't have a chance to absorb it like you can as an older person. You sit back and you can really cherish and enjoy it.

"It was a special time. I don't think people in Winnipeg maybe realized what that time period was going to result in 40 years later. Now we're bragging about another National Hockey League team called the Jets and to think, going back to that time, that this was what was going to transpire is incredible."

In some ways it was a time similar to the 15-year period between the departure of the original Jets for Phoenix and the arrival of the new Jets from Atlanta. Fans wanted to believe pro hockey would come to Winnipeg, but it was hard to get their hopes up. Hatskin had tried to land an NHL expansion team but was turned down. This WHA thing seemed like the only hope.

"If, as a 16-year-old, somebody would have told me I was going to end my career in Winnipeg, playing pro hockey, I would have said "What are you smoking?," Daley laughed. "I didn't think that was going to be a possibility."

Few people did, except for maybe the legendary Hatskin, who somehow convinced the other WHA owners to help him pony up cash to offer Hull a million bucks. That was the moment the WHA became real and it held its own for seven years, until the big bad NHL finally swallowed it up and grudgingly accepted the four strongest franchises, including the Jets.

Hatskin's feat, and Hull's greatness are what made the Jets and it all traces back to that incredible first season.

For the next few days, the Winnipeg Sun will celebrate those indelible months on the hockey calendar, culminating on Friday, Oct. 12, the 40th anniversary of the first game ever played by the Jets, at Madison Square Garden against the New York Raiders.

We'll bring you the memories of many of the old Jets -- a handful still live in Winnipeg -- and look back at how Hatskin and his partners brought it all together. And, of course, no story on the original Jets would be complete without a visit from Robert Marvin Hull.

It was a time and a league that changed hockey forever.

It was a team that set the table for Winnipeg to become the hockey-mad city that it is today.